It is true that having
a college education is becoming more and more necessary in order to be successful
in our current society. Employers who are looking to hire automatically put the
people who have a college degree before those who don’t. For this very reason,
it is extremely desired to go on to further education in order to have a well
paying job; and colleges like for-profit universities know this. For-profit
schools used to be extremely popular just a few decades ago. Students found
them convenient because the courses provided a more direct line guiding them to
their desired major. They didn’t have to go to school for as long as other
universities which was preferred for parents and those who work long hours
already. However, some suspicions about the way these for-profit colleges truly
work began to arise. These colleges are said to pull students into massive
amounts of debt that they will never be able to recuperate from as well as
having a much greater drop out rate than other universities. In addition, a
large number of graduates are having a surprisingly hard time finding good jobs
as opposed to those who are graduated from a public college. People like Kevin
Carey in “Why do you Think They’re Called For-Profit Colleges?” have researched
the attributes that keep these schools profitable as well as how they really
work. Carey additionally illustrates one specific entrepreneur, Michael Clifford,
who helps pick up deteriorating non-profit colleges and turns them into
“money-making machines” (Carey 53). He believes for-profit universities are
here to stay. They help the people often forgotten by non-profit colleges get
an education and prepare them for their desired career.
In this essay, I
will compare the claims that Carey provides his readers to the evidence
provided by other sources regarding the pros and cons of for-profit
universities. I will initially analyze findings from the GAO report in “FOR-PROFIT
COLLEGES: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaging in
Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices”. The US senate initiated this
report because they wanted to get a better idea of how these universities were
run. It complicates claims that Carey examines in his article. I will then continue
by comparing statistics at both San Diego State University and the American
Public University system to Carey’s work and how it complicates his claim.
Lastly, I will use a book review of The
Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty at
For-Profit Colleges and Universities and how it also complicates what Carey
states in his writing.
Carey’s work and one of his claims correlates well to a government
testing on for-profit universities conducted a few years ago. This
investigation is a key text that I am utilizing because its results are rather
noteworthy. Carey mentions briefly in his writing that students who attended
for-profit universities are having an extremely hard time paying back their
loans. “The for-profit Corinthian Colleges (as of mid-July, market cap:
$923-million) estimated in official documents filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission that more than half the loans it makes to its own students
will go bad” (Carey 54). Carey extends this idea farther by educating us that
Corinthian and other for-profit colleges still make a profit because of the
money “Uncle Sam” guarantees them. However, this government study of various
undercover officials looking to see how different for-profits would react to
certain situations they were put in complicates Carey’s work and makes it seem
that he only brushed the surface of a much greater problem. These government
officials had 2 goals: to see if they engaged in fraudulent practices, and to
compare their tuition to than public universities. What they found would change
how they viewed these for-profit schools forever. They found that 27% of the 15
universities they assessed “encouraged fraudulent practices and that all 15 made deceptive
or otherwise questionable statements to GAO's undercover applicants” (FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges…). In addition to
this discovery, they found out that for-profit colleges are much more expensive
to attend than other alternative colleges. A personal account of a student who
got their massage therapy license from a for-profit university for only 14,000
dollars was astonished when she heard she could have gotten the same license at
her local community college for only 520 dollars. These findings showed the GAO’s and others
involved in the undercover study that all of the stories and opinions regarding
these for-profit universities being deceptive were far from a lie. Carey does a
fine job introducing this defining aspect of for-profit education by elevating
the claim that “large debt plus small income equals high risk of default”
(Carey 54). The GAO report accurately complicates Carey, extending the idea
that fraudulent and deceptive practices are the reason for these high
statistics of students falling into unforgiving debt. These fraudulent colleges
will go through drastic measures to make their income. They treat their students
as if they were a commodity, lying to them in order to make a profit off of
their students’ tight income and government subsidies.
My second
source complicates one particular key point Carey discusses in his writing. The
data I have is an interesting piece of evidence being that it provides real
statistics created in order to compare different types of colleges. Carey explains,
“[Clifford] denies that colleges have any responsibilities whatsoever for how
much students borrow and whether they can pay it back.” (Carey 54). This quote
is very peculiar based on the results from the 2012 census of San Diego State
University and for-profits in the American Public University system. It is
truly baffling to see how many people do attend for-profit universities based
off of the evidence I am providing. It would be interesting to know if students
from schools in the American Public system would have chosen a different path
to take for their education if they would have known that only 21.4 percent of
everyone that enrolls will obtain a degree in six years (College Results
Online). That low statistic is most definitely because of underlying flaws in
the for-profit system. However, Carey would rebuttal by saying that how much the
students put into their education is how much they are going to get out. More
than half of a university’s students not being able to graduate on time if at
all would be a definite red flag for most people who are looking for a college
to attend to. For perspective, 66
percent of students who attend SDSU will graduate by the six-year mark (College
Results Online). Not being able to graduate in a timely manner if at all is
generating more income for the for-profit colleges, another one of their moneymaking
schemes. I would ask Clifford: “why would this problem not be put on the
shoulders of for-profit schools if more than half of the students they enroll
can’t even obtain their desired major in a timely manner much less afford
another semester at these overpriced colleges?” One can agree from this data
more than half of the students at for-profit universities will drop out due to
other circumstances. These circumstances may include finding no benefit in the
education they provide, not wanting to sink further into debt, or even teaching
that doesn’t prepare students well enough to succeed in their career of choice.
Additionally, most of the students who attend for-profit universities are minority
and more Pell grants are taken out in order for the students to pay for their
education. An astonishing 89 percent of those attending schools in the American
Public system use this method of payment where as only 30 percent of those
attending SDSU do. The increasing interest rates on the grants make paying off
loans virtually impossible which is the last thing low income citizens should
be worrying about.
Another behind the scenes study that I am utilizing
is one from the professors who work at these for-profit institutions. The book
review of The Changing Landscape of the
Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty at For-Profit Colleges and
Universities is an extremely accurate way of depicting how life is like in
the shoes of the professors working there. It ties into the work of Carey by
complicating what he introduces in his text. On page 55 of the RWS Course
Reader, he begins to mention a deal that was not “favorable to faculty” where the
community colleges would begin to offer classes that the bankrupt public
colleges could not. He claims that the initial cause of this derived from the “feckless
voters and incompetent politicians who have driven California to ruin” (Carey
55). The thought to hold that law back because it wasn’t fair to the professors
elevates questions of what for-profit schools are all about. The teachers at
these institutions are not trained to teach broad ideas to their students. They
stick to what students will concretely need to know in their specific careers. That
is not the fault of the voters and politicians; that is the result of
malpractices within the doors of these universities. Further complicating Carey
is this specific book review on The
Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty at
For-Profit Colleges and Universities. The purpose of Carole J. Bland in her
book is to inform the reader about what happens behind the doors of these
institutions rather than persuading them to think one way over another. Because
of this method of approach, she is a very credible source to have in my
research. Overall, the faculty members at for-profit universities “are
redefining the academy by treating education as a commodity, offering programs
that focus specifically on job training, and exclusively employing contingent
faculty members” (The Changing Landscape…8). This actual quote from the book
itself allows the reader to understand the current values of these
universities. Professors who are hired at these institutions are trained to
speed up the education process for the students who attend. However, Carey
ignores that what is left out in teaching is the most important part of all:
classes that make students well-rounded individuals who obtain critical
thinking abilities and problem solving skills. These skills are two of the key
abilities people lack in this developing time period that significantly helps
employees to prosper in their jobs.
In this research paper, I used three different
sources that all primarily complicate or extend what Carey stands for in his
work. During my research I found plenty of interesting things that I didn’t
know about for-profit universities before. It is thought provoking to know that
the people who are given jobs at different for-profit universities are willing
to jump through hoops in order to make their employers happy so they can keep
their jobs. Even the confirmation that the recruiters at these universities are
trying to sign people up who weren’t meant for college and the financial
burdens it entails is important to understanding the ethics that for-profits
practice. It really does surface just how much they rely on the loans their
students take out that are provided by taxpayers. Carey introduces the “90/10
rule” which constitutes for the law that no more than 90 percent of
for-profit’s income can come from loans. This seems like an outrageous amount
of money, and it is. Laws are in the process of being passed to lower it to the
“85/15 rule” which will be the right direction in which we are going to change
the negative image for-profit universities have made for themselves. Carey does
neglect to go into detail in some of his claims though, making it difficult to
work with the meager information he provides. Carey is mostly for the idea of
for-profit colleges because he knows that although he knows that some problems
do exist, and some new regulation is warranted, these for-profit universities
are vital to higher education because they are innovative and help the students
who are ignored by traditional institutions. Because of all this, they are here
to stay.
Works Sited
1. "For-Profit
Colleges: Undercover Testing Finds Colleges Encouraged Fraud and Engaged in
Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices."U.S. GAO -. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2014.
2. "Project
MUSE - The Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty
at For-Profit Colleges and Universities (review)."Project MUSE - The
Changing Landscape of the Academic Profession: The Culture of Faculty at
For-Profit Colleges and Universities (review). N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct.
2014.
3. "College
Results Online." College Results Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 20
Oct. 2014.
4. Carey,
Kevin. “Why Do You Think They’re Called For-Profit Colleges?” RWS Course
Reader. Ed. Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies. San Diego: Montezuma
Publishing, 2014. 53-55. Print.
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